Get to Know our Runners

Jan Steenkamp – the Multiple Marathons, the Beard, and the Kiss

This year’s Queen City marathon was unlike the past thirteen QCM races (excepting one) for Jan Steenkamp. He wasn’t running. In past years, he would be in constant motion for the week before the race, setting up the expo and the finish line, and then jumping into the start corral to run (almost always the marathon distance). But this year, three weeks earlier, he had undergone back surgery, and his doctor had advised him: no lifting or carrying things as a volunteer; probably no running for six months. If anyone needs to run, it’s Jan. He explains, “I have no patience”. As he rehabs himself back into running form though, he is forced to have exactly that. Jan reports that the first few weeks post-surgery of no activity were extremely depressing, but once he started walking, he began to feel the excitement of progression from 1 to 2, 3 and then 5 km.

That process of starting small and slow and improving echoes his running history. Jan grew up in South Africa, playing rugby and doing karate, even earning his first-degree black belt in karate. He says he was always fighting against his weight, yoyoing up and down. And that was indirectly how he started running. When he and wife Tania moved from South Africa in 1997, he gave up his career as a prosecutor to became a stay-at-home Dad in Regina. And he gained weight. Even though he had foresworn alcohol before he left SA, and gave up his 50 cigarette per day habit in 2007, he still had health issues. With a family history of heart disease and early death, doctors recommended that he get stomach reduction surgery. Before surgery though, he had to lose weight to prove to the medical team that he’d be able to keep the weight off. His therapist recommended first 1 km, then 2 km of walking. But walking was proving too slow, so he started running during some of his walking time. Pretty soon he was running 5 km, and ran himself right out of eligibility for reduction surgery. He was too successful, eventually losing more than 100 pounds! Jan’s first race was a 5 km in 2011 – the Mayor’s run, and he says he “fell in love with running”. His wife, Tania, accompanied him in the run, and together they started running further, faster, and just more. Jan and Tania’s first marathon was 44 km in the timed Goose Bump race of 2013. Since then, Jan has finished 158 marathons (or longer), including many ultramarathons and multiple marathons over a sequence of days (8 marathons in 8 days for example). He’s run marathons in 27 American states and 14 countries.

It feels unnatural to write about Jan without writing about his constant running companion Tania. Jan has run 158 marathons; Tania has done 155. They run the same races; and would have the same number were it not for injuries. Running as a couple is certainly part of what makes Jan’s running tick. The duo met in high school, started dating after Tania asked Jan out, and have been together 46 years! They do their training runs together; they run loop races step in step; and they start each marathon together. Each event starts with a kiss. Ah, the famous kiss – there’s always a documented kiss at every race. Then, because they have different running styles – Tania likes a faster start – they often run separately to the finish. Sometimes Tania stays in front; sometimes Jan catches her and beats her to the finish line. Where there is again, of course, a kiss.

Jan says his chief goal in running is mainly about health and staying active, trying to run and be active into his seventies and beyond; rather than running a certain number of marathons, or running marathons in 50 states or running in new countries. He feels proud of achieving the levels he’s reached; but there’s also a second goal, and it has to do with his visibility. He always wears a running shirt or singlet for the Marathon Maniacs running club or the 100 Marathons running club. In North America, other Marathon Maniacs will call out, or start chatting to him. It’s a social thing. An obvious feature of his visibility is the beard. Jan started growing his beard back in fall of 2015 when runners signed up for the following spring’s Spruce Woods ultra in Manitoba, were challenged to see who could grow the fiercest beard in six months. Jan might have won…Another ingredient in visibility is being part of a long-time loving couple who clearly enjoy taking on running challenges together, …and kissing. Taken together – the kissing couple, the fame as a well-traveled Marathon Maniac, and the beard – Jan is well recognized and well loved. Compared to his personal running achievements, Jan is even prouder of having influenced people to start running, or to set themselves the challenge of running a longer distance. Jan and Tania’s two daughters, Jannike and Tandi, run (and volunteer!), and Jan’s sister started going to Park Runs in South Africa, and has done over 100 Park Runs! Other runners often approach him in Regina, or even down in the states to tell him that he’s influenced them and their running. Jan’s downtime after surgery has made him realize that his part in running is to be a part of something bigger, and he can hardly wait to fully embrace that role again.

Rob McLeod – Can You Keep Up with Regina’s Energizer Bunny?

Rob McLeod is likely the most active retiree you know. On winter weekdays, he jogs/walks to the Fieldhouse, does an hour of Cardio and Strength, and then a half hour of Aquasize and then jogs or walks home. On weekends, he’ll either be cross country skiing (classic) up to 40 km or, if he’s training for a spring marathon, doing a long run. In summer, he swaps fieldhouse classes for intense stadium stair workouts; and goes for long walks with his wife Cathie or his daughter’s dog. And that’s just the cross training! With a routine like this, is it any wonder that he’s achieved what he has?

Maybe because he started running so late in life – at 45 – Rob peaked at age 60, setting all his PRs at distances from 5 k to marathon at that age. He’s won his age group at some major marathons like Vancouver, and P’tit Train du Nord in Quebec with a 3:03 PR. He’s run races in all provinces including a trail half in the Yukon. He’s run three of the World major marathons, and is planning to run Berlin in 2026. But he probably won’t do the whole 6-majors-get-the-giant-medal thing. That leads to his motivation: and what motivates Rob is definitely unusual. For example, on his first trip to the Boston marathon and its utterly fabulous expo, Rob spent exactly zero dollars on running gear that would advertise where he’d raced. And where does he keep his medals and trophies – somewhere in the storage room in the basement… 

Rob wasn’t always a super fit dude. As a large animal veterinarian in Kelvington, he had an active job, but didn’t do any sport related activities. That changed with a backpacking trip with his older sister Lyn in 2005. Naturally, they chose as Rob’s first packing trip one of the most difficult packing challenges in Canada – the West Coast Trail. Rob loved backpacking and being in nature – in fact it’s still his top priority in athletic endeavours. He wanted to get fitter so that he could enjoy it even more. Since Lyn was a marathoner, and would talk about running, Rob decided that running was the way to catch that extra fitness.

Twenty years ago, there were no on-line training programs. There were no watches that you could buy that would guide you through a series of workouts. And there were no other runners in Kelvington! So Rob just started running on the dirt roads around town. Most beginning runners start at a slow pace and gradually speed up as they improve. Not Rob! He started at a fast pace, and at first could only cover less than a kilometer. As he gradually improved, he increased his distance. And he only did intervals because his running partner – his dog - was doing intervals (…Squirrel!)

His first race was a half-marathon in 2007. I asked Rob why he chose such a long distance for his first running event. “Because I’m stupid”. Well stupidity served him well, because the next year, Rob ran his first marathon at Regina’s Queen City Marathon, and only a year after that, he ran the QCM fast enough to qualify for Boston. I always ask our interviewees what they are most proud of, but Rob reversed that question, and talked about what he most deeply regrets. Rob is from a family of seven kids, and his younger brother Ron was a gifted natural athlete. At the Victoria marathon in 2010, six of Rob’s family members ran various distances, with Rob and Ron running the marathon. They both qualified for Boston! But as a large animal vet in a small town, spring meant calving, not spring races. So the brothers made a plan to both qualify in 2013 and then run Boston together. Busy careers and life intervened, and then Ron was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2018. He sadly passed away in 2019. Rob now says if you’ve got an opportunity, don’t wait, take it!

Rob’s next stage in his running adventure was to start guiding a visually impaired runner. Jeff Robinson from Ontario wanted to do a marathon in all provinces, and in 2016, was looking for a guide runner for his Saskatchewan race at QCM. Rob heard about the request and agreed to guide Jeff. They ran another four marathons, including Boston, together, and Jeff achieved his best time when Rob was guiding. By the way, Rob says that running as a guide runner at Boston is quite a treat. The organizers treat the visually impaired runners and their guides as elite athletes: they have their own dedicated start and finisher tents and start corral. 

So what’s next – more walks with dogs and traveling to places with Cathie. And most definitely, more backpacking!

Abbey Schmidt – She has speed and endurance, now she needs luck

You probably noticed that Abbey Schmidt is on an upswing. Every result I enter for her, on the Marathon Matters results page, it seems as if I am adding, “and Abbey Schmidt scored another marathon PR”.  Ever since she qualified for Boston in 2022, she has repeated that feat at every marathon. But speed will only get you so far…Abbey has the goal of completing all of the six Abbot World Major marathons, and has completed three – Chicago, Boston, and Berlin. Three of the world majors have qualifying times that allow a runner to enter, but to get into two of the races– Tokyo and London – Abbey now needs to get lucky in the lottery.

Abbey grew up in Halifax in a sporty family. She had an older brother, and naturally tried to keep up and surpass him. Her dad, Gary Armitage, was a runner, and Abbey started running with him. Dad accompanied Abbey in her first race, a 10 km, which Abbey described laughingly, as “traumatizing”. Abbey had no concept of pacing, and when she started way too fast, Dad just assumed Abbey could maintain that speed… Oops. Abbey’s main sport was soccer, and she competed in it through school and university, and even played two seasons in the UK when she moved there for casual work. While in England, as well as playing soccer, she ran her first half-marathon.

Coming back to Canada, Abbey was accepted into the RCMP. During training, all recruits have to do physical training, and this was the first time Abbey realized that she could be a fast runner. She held the RCMP female record for 5k for all training troops during the time she was training on the base. Abbey’s coworkers in the RCMP, and the organization itself, have been highly supportive of Abbey’s running opportunities and achievements. Abbey won the silver medal for W35 in half-marathon at the World Police and Fire games in 2023, even setting a PR. She was also part of a law enforcement team running a relay from Baker, California to Las Vegas. Being an RCMP officer also played a more direct role in Abbey’s progress in running. Before her current position as the firearms training coordinator, she worked for two years in the Physical Fitness unit. This position required her to run and strength train along with the recruits. After this higher volume training interval, Abbey qualified for Boston for the first time.

I asked Abbey what she was most proud of. I thought she might choose one of her recent PRs, perhaps breaking the 3:30 mark at the recent Mountains to Beach marathon, or placing on the podium at the Beaver Flat 20 km event. But she’s so damn humble. Instead, she talked about trying to be a positive influence in the running community and motivating others to reach for their own goals. She’s been a four time pacer at QCM (including this year), and runs many of her long and recovery runs with the group she calls “her run crew”. This group inspires us all with their positive support and general goofiness – witness the new Michael Dahlman shirts they all wore for Michael’s birthday on a recent group run. And Abbey is passing on her love of running with her own son, Anderson, now 7 years old. In order to fit training in a busy life of work and parenting, Abbey does some runs on her treadmill or on the track at work with her little guy playing alongside. Last year, Anderson ran the 2 km Mini Marathon at the QCM, and history repeated itself with him going out way too fast – “like Usain Bolt” Abbey says. After some refocusing, he recovered and sprinted to the finish, happily changing the family history re-enactment to an un-traumatizing ending.

You might see Abbey out training hard doing a pace run, or interval work. Or you might see her laughing and joking on the run with her run crew. Regardless, give a wave to this hard-working, inspiring athlete! 

Wendy Tomyk - "It Makes Me Feel Like a Kid"

Wendy Tomyk is the everything bagel of runners. Over the last twenty-some years, she’s tried almost all sectors of running – road races from half-marathons to marathons; 5 km Park Runs; triathlons; timed ultra events on loops; serial races like three half-marathons in three days; and trail races both local and exotic. Likewise, her training runs span that same variety – running with a formal group like the Wednesday Running Room club; running by herself; running with one or two friends. Like so many of us, Wendy loves the camaraderie, but also needs the stress relief of solo runs. Stress is down somewhat since she left her stint as an Emergency triage nurse, but she still works part-time as a surgical nurse; runs; loves spending family time including with a new grand-baby; and putters in many artistic endeavours. The running community benefits from that artistic talent. Wendy is the designer of a series of Canada Goose medals, including the brilliant one with the goose spinning around the clockface, and she and Doris Burdon are designing and making new pottery mugs for the awards for personal longest distances at the Canada Goose event.

The first time Wendy started running, she literally was a kid. She ran in early high school, but unlike most high school runners, it wasn’t for cross country or track season. She wanted to maintain weight. Unlike other high school runners, she’d run for as much as an hour at a time. The town folks of Moosomin likely thought she was crazy. But then typical teenage things happened – she met her husband to be; she got a job, and there were parties…so running was on hold. It stayed on hold until Wendy was 40 with grown up kids and a stressful job as a triage nurse in Emergency.  

Wendy was doing Jazzercize when her friend Pam asked her if she wanted to do the See Jane Tri triathlon. Yes! The two took Learn to Swim classes, rode bikes, started running, and successfully accomplished their goal. Then Pam quit but Wendy kept on running on her own, working up to a half-marathon (luckily they remain travel buddies and besties!). The next year, she joined the Track and Trail run club. There, she met many of her current friends that she still runs and rides with – Doris Burdon, Loanne Myrah, and Sean Reidy. Wendy finished her first marathon at QCM in 2011. What would be next?

Wendy was persuaded by friend Lee-Ann Ricci to run her first ultra in 2015  – 50 km at the predecessor of the Canada Goose Ultra race – the Goose Bump. She began running further, and further afield. She has a streak of increasing her distance at every Goose event she’s run in, and has posted a longest distance of 104 km. She particularly likes Jason Hubick’s local trail events, and as well she’s run trail races from Arizona to Northern Ireland. When she talks about some of these events, her eyes sparkle and you can hear the excitement in her voice. “That race had everything,” she says talking about the 64 km Causeway Coast trail run in Northern Ireland. “There was sand, and boulders, singletrack, and sheep gates, and stairs. When I saw the stairs, I couldn’t believe it, they just went up and up”. She seems to particularly revel in the hardest part of each race. Regarding the Causeway Coast run, Wendy says, “I loved those boulders. You had to use your hands and sometimes your hands would get caught”. She gets that same excitement talking about bombing downhill at races like Beaver Flat or Powderface, “I just feel like a kid running downhill on a trail. It’s so much fun!”

You’ll see Wendy this year on Saturday morning group runs, out doing the Lumsden or Douglas Park hills, or running around Wascana Park. She’ll be at the Gopher, the Canada Goose, the Hoot and Howl, the Bigfoot, and the Prairie Nightmare. Usually, at this point of our ‘Get to know our Club Runner’ series, I’ll ask you to wave or say hi. But for Wendy, I think you should send her a postcard from any of your travels…but just don’t sign it.

Craig Johnson - Humility Personified

Craig Johnson is the most humble guy I know. He dates this quality from an incident when he was 7 or 8 years old. Craig was developing as an excellent baseball player, and his coach announced that he would treat the team to a celebration lunch if they did well at a certain game. They succeeded in meeting the coach’s goal, and each 8-year old was regaling the others about how his catch, bat, or steal had won the game for them. “Boys,” said the coach as Craig remembers it, “you don’t need to tell people if you’ve done well – we’ll see it for ourselves”. Craig has never forgotten that boyhood lesson, and even now, at 60+, he’s reluctant to do anything remotely like boasting. How many of you knew that Craig is likely the second-most prolific marathoner in Regina, with well over 150 marathons and ultras to his credit? Interestingly, Craig doesn’t even know exactly how many marathons and ultras he’s run: he’s after the experience - new experiences and new ventures – rather than numbers and lists (even Craig’s list, ha ha). You can really see this in Craig’s non-running life: he has sky dived; parasailed; white-water rafted; and bungee jumped, among many other pursuits.

Craig’s running didn’t start out so adventurously. He began running to get more fit as a top baseball player. Only after a few years of running 15 to 30 minutes at a time, did he start entering races. Back then, the Saskatchewan Timex series was foremost, and runners ran the 5 and 10 k’s around the province. Marathons and half-marathons were pretty rare. Craig ran the 5 km event at the Buffalothon as his first race, and at the start line, he marveled at the runners lining up in the opposite direction who were going to do the 15 km event. 15 km! How was that even possible? Of course, he soon found out it was, and the next year, he joined that group running 15 km. From there, it was simple math – well, a marathon was less than triple of what he had just done, so why not give it a go? He ran his first marathon at the Saskatchewan marathon in Saskatoon in 1990. Craig’s progression through running mirrors running culture in Regina. He went from running 5 and 10 k’s to running marathons; then running multiple marathons in one year; and then running trail and mountain ultras.

Craig loves the memories of the early Regina running days, training with and traveling to races with the Regina Road Runners, and being part of a team at the Jasper Banff and Kananaskis relays. In those days, travel to races further than a couple of hours was rare, and very seldom out of province. But Craig had a hankering to visit New York City. He managed to get a NYC marathon entry form and mail it in with his American money order. He found himself running his sixth marathon in New York city among a huge crowd of 25 to 30,000 runners, with spectators lining up five-deep cheering them on. What a blast for a prairie boy! It is still his favourite running experience. He was the first of the RRR group to run an ultra longer than 50 km – the Prince Albert 50 miler. Being one of the first local ultra runners was challenging – he had to guess about training, fueling, and as he says, back then he thought, “What’s a taper?”

Craig’s running multiple marathons accelerated because of a Regina Road Runners initiative. The club would award pins for first marathon; fifth marathon; tenth marathon; and 25th marathon. Then some people (I blame Craig’s running partner, Barry Hopkins) got competitive about their totals. Barry started vying with Jennifer Taylor to see who could pull ahead of the other. But it was hard to one-up local runners because there just weren’t that many marathons within one-day driving distance – at first just Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton. So if Barry or Craig found a new marathon not known by the rest of the group, he would make sure not to tell anyone else – Barry and Craig would disappear for the weekend, and return next week sporting new medals around their necks and chortling madly. Craig and Barry were the masters of “the secret marathon”.

After many road running years, he started running mountain ultras. Craig excels at hiking uphill, so he did well at 50 mile races like the Crown King scramble in Arizona, Bighorn in Wyoming, and Lost Souls ultra in Lethbridge. At first, 100 mile races were a challenge too far for him. Past 50 miles, his feet blistered grotesquely. Luckily once Jeff Campbell started crewing his races, Jeff figured out the root cause of the blistering – Craig’s electrolyte intake was seriously off, so his hands and feet would swell, and then the blisters would develop. He would never have figured out the answer had he not persevered.

These days, Craig has cut back a bit to maybe one long race a year. You’ll also see him on the paths, or doing the Lumsden hills, or out at Park run. Be sure to share a few kilometers with him: I can guarantee he’ll keep you entertained with some wild stories.

Michael Dahlman - Social Butterfly and Numbers Nerd

You know Michael Dahlman: the engaging guy who’s always organizing group runs at the Running Room; being a pacer at the Queen City marathon; dressing up in costumes during a race; always running in a group where you can hear the runners laughing. But Michael’s social side is balanced by a more introspective characteristic – what he calls “the numbers nerd side”. He pulls out his Smash Run technology to check on some of his answers to my questions. I stare at the bar graph showing one huge peak close to the y axis. “What’s that – your big run at the Canada Goose 24 hour?” (meaning 130 km at last year’s Canada Goose 24 hour). Michael clarifies – this graph is all his years of running, since 2012, showing over 17,000 km, and the huge spike is when he and friend Greg Chovin ran the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee, invented by Lazarus Lake of Barkley fame. They covered the 1000 km in 40 days, averaging 25 km per day. Of course the numbers didn’t start that big. Michael worked a desk job back in 2011, weighing 65 pounds heavier than his current weight, and being frustrated with his life. He hired a trainer, started lifting weights and doing 15 minutes on a treadmill. The treadmill time became 20 min, 30 min, and then he transitioned to running outside and became, as he says, “super obsessive”. But also, so happy.

Michael began organizing runners in 2015, working part time at Running Room, and helping train people and organize races. At the same time, he began pursuing his own goals –first tough mudder, first marathon, first ultra, first mountain trail race. Each of those got commemorated as a tattoo on his calves! Reviewing his tattoos is like hearing a story line of his racing history. On his left calf are a maple leaf, a mountain scene, and the Saskatchewan Legislative building. The three main scenes are surrounded by stars – little stars for half-marathons, big stars for ultras, and eight little orange dots for tough mudders. I ask about each of the main designs. Each of them is a first. The Leg building is from the Queen City medal when he ran his first marathon in 2016. The maple leaf represents his first ultra, when he ran 101 km at the Canada Goose when it was the National championship event. And there’s quite a story behind the mountain scene. Michael has gone on to run many stages of the famously tough Sinister 7, but in 2018, he ran the Golden Ultra three day event. Days 1 and 3 went fine, but day 2, he was close to the top of the 66 km on steep switchbacks, leading up to the Kicking Horse summit, but only 20 minutes left to meet the time cut-off. Unfortunately, his stomach did not want him to make the time cut-off. Non-stop puking forced him to quit. 

His right leg commemorates the marathons making up the Abbott world majors. So far, Michael has done Chicago, Berlin, and New York City. Berlin was especially celebratory as it was the first time he broke the four hour mark in the marathon. Michael continues to get steadily faster, setting PRs every year, and is continually plotting new ways to improve and make his Boston qualifying mark, as well as getting into Tokyo and London. The Sydney marathon, likely the next Abbott major, is Michael’s A race for 2024.

You’ll see Michael out on the roads all the time. Now that he’s a postie, and walking 50 km a week while carrying a pack, he’s built up stamina for high mileage. He’ll either be running with his pups, Emma and Tucker, or with a group of like-minded runners, plotting new ways to get faster, to get more people out running, and generally spreading good cheer. Make sure you say Hi!